An AIDS-free generation: It seems an audacious goal, considering how the HIV epidemic still is raging around the world.
Yet more than 20,000 international HIV researchers and activists will gather in the nation's capital later this month with a sense of optimism not seen in many years - hope that it finally may be possible to dramatically stem the spread of the AIDS virus.
"We want to make sure we don't overpromise," Dr. Anthony Fauci, the National Institutes of Health's infectious disease chief, told The Associated Press. But, he said, "I think we are at a turning point."
The big new focus is on trying to get more people with HIV treated early, when they're first infected, instead of waiting until they're weakened or sick, as the world largely has done until now. Staying healthier also makes them less likely to infect others.
That's a tall order. But studies over the past two years have shown what Fauci calls "striking, sometimes breathtaking results," in preventing people at high risk of HIV from getting it in some of the hardest-hit countries, using this treatment-as-prevention and some other protections.
Now, as the International AIDS Conference returns to the U.S. for the first time in 22 years, the question is whether the world will come up with the money and the know-how to put the best combinations of protections into practice, for AIDS-ravaged poor countries and hot spots in developed nations as well.
Yet more than 20,000 international HIV researchers and activists will gather in the nation's capital later this month with a sense of optimism not seen in many years - hope that it finally may be possible to dramatically stem the spread of the AIDS virus.
"We want to make sure we don't overpromise," Dr. Anthony Fauci, the National Institutes of Health's infectious disease chief, told The Associated Press. But, he said, "I think we are at a turning point."
The big new focus is on trying to get more people with HIV treated early, when they're first infected, instead of waiting until they're weakened or sick, as the world largely has done until now. Staying healthier also makes them less likely to infect others.
That's a tall order. But studies over the past two years have shown what Fauci calls "striking, sometimes breathtaking results," in preventing people at high risk of HIV from getting it in some of the hardest-hit countries, using this treatment-as-prevention and some other protections.
Now, as the International AIDS Conference returns to the U.S. for the first time in 22 years, the question is whether the world will come up with the money and the know-how to put the best combinations of protections into practice, for AIDS-ravaged poor countries and hot spots in developed nations as well.
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